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Comment by sivers | Hacker News Reader

I got 30 Mbps (actual, on speedtest.net right now) fibre to the home from Orcon. Thanks to subsidized fibre rollout. :-)

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It should go without saying that I'm incredibly jealous fibre isn't available in my part of the country.

Yeah. I was really surprised. I was preparing for a less-online-life, then just as I we moved in, we got a notice that fibre was ready. Oh well.

I'll give you my wifi password so you can sit on the porch & surf all you want.

I'm very surprised at that. I've heard the internet is basically horrible in New Zealand and they have horrible bandwidth limits there. Is this a very recent development?

It's not that bad anymore. When I arrived 5 years ago the data caps were still terrible with around 10GB. They still exist but are 10x-20x higher now (and there are some unlimited plans) and 100mbit down is not uncommon. There's 4G with decent speed too... I get 27mbit down on my iPhone 5s in Wellington—that's on 3.5G. Some rural areas are not as lucky of course.

It’s better. We have things like fibre and VDSL2 with unlimited caps now. Like properly unlimited ones (not just "unlimited"). You can get a gigabit internet connection -- or even dark fibre between private premises -- in many cases.

For example, one residential ISP just released a statement apparently clarifying their policy regarding "unlimited" plans [1]:

“Customers are free to go crazy and use as much data as they want. We have some customers using nine terabytes per month on our residential unlimited plans which shows just how unlimited they really are."

9TB at home?!

Personally I use a different ISP at my house: I have ADSL2+ and get a quota of 260 GB per month for about $50. This is a "naked" service so I receive it via a copper line whose regular landline dial-tone service has been disconnected.

[1] https://www.orcon.net.nz/about/article/orcons_unlimited_broa...

Orcon are great - although my only experience is connecting to their game servers from here in Australia. Looks like I can put NZ back on my "places to flee to" list.

Options for home broadband have improved, but cellular data speeds are low and free wifi is uncommon.

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